


Before there's nothing left to give

by dmajor7th



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: All that has happened and all that could have been, Asynchronous flashbacks, Depression, Ending Relationship, Flashbacks, How it all ended, Introspection, Kerberos Mission, M/M, Pre-Canon, Pre-Kerberos Mission, Relationship origin, Shadam, Shiro you fool, Swearing, Timeline Crossover, adashi, invisible illness, relationship exploration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2018-09-01
Packaged: 2019-07-05 12:42:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15863847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dmajor7th/pseuds/dmajor7th
Summary: Nothing on Earth is like the mountains of Kerberos, haunting like only a ghost of something familiar can be.If you could only see this.Shiro doesn't say.





	Before there's nothing left to give

**Author's Note:**

> Hey hey! Thanks for stopping by. A little warning - If you read this on a platform that doesn't support formatting, it might not make a lot of sense.

 

* * *

 

_Everything hurts._

“Lieutenant Shirogane, Kerberos coordinates being transferred.”

“Copy.” Shiro replies, pushing through the fog. In this moment he can not tend to the sticky, thorned vines that wrap around his heart (the weakest of all his muscles), puncturing holes as they tighten their grip.

He feels his weight press into the boxy pilot’s seat as they sit back skywards, the anxious buzz of preflight checks humming in the background.

Eyes fluttering close, he focuses on the bracelet on this right wrist. It’s the medical bay’s best effort from keeping his muscles from tearing themselves apart — the only thing holding him together.

Then he pays heed to the bracelet on his left, the simple band of white-gold and silver Adam gave him on their first trip to Japan. Shiro hadn’t been able to hold back his laugh as Adam growled whilst struggling to undo the obi of his yukata. That night Shiro pressed the cold metal to warm skin, and neither of them slept.  
  
The band had always been just a little too tight; gripping without cutting, harder to ignore and than most ever-present objects. Shiro never thought to get it resized.

“Countdown to lift-off. 5—”

—

_Adam follows the rule of three._

_“Every trip to the medical bay. Visiting Osaka to tell your parents. The countless times I’ve stayed up all night feeling totally helpless and trying my best.”_

_“I thought you enjoyed that vacation.” Shiro says quietly, not meeting Adam’s gaze. “I didn’t realise I was such a burden.”_

_“Takashi…” Adam’s arms wrap around themselves, they way they always do when he can’t find the right words — words Shiro knows Adam wants to sting but not burn._

_“I just... I can’t…” Adam sighs, anger seeping out before drawing back, implosive. “Why do you keep testing my faith?”_

—

“Shiro, Matt, hold tight.” Commander Holt says through the intercom as they battle the pull of earth’s gravity.

Everyone Shiro trusts.  
_“No one is denying your piloting capability Lieutenant, but your skills can be put to use in other areas without compromising your safety.”_

Everyone Shiro cares for.  
_“What the FUCK. You're fucking leaving? You can’t do this. Please.”_

Everyone Shiro loves.  
_“Your crates are in the living room. I’m afraid I couldn’t find the ring box.”_

Everyone Shiro wishes understood, but none of them do. They can’t. They won’t.

 _“Why try and protect me from what neither of us can control? I’ve made peace with it — what do I have to lose?”_  
  
_“Me, Shiro. Me.”_

Because the truth of it all is that he did not join the Garrison to pass each day in a pleasant, numbing daze. He knows what every soldier knows — that if you are safe then it’s someone else's life that's keeping yours off the line.

Every jaw-clenching spasm, every hot bolt of agony only beats the drum louder of what he already knows — that he has no choice but to live for the moment.

And if he has to fight his own instincts, everyone he loves and the deep-bone desire to sink into the interminable vacuum of an easy life — If that’s what he needs to do to stay awake and alive and to actually mean something, well then. That’s what will happen.

—

_“You’re hurt.”_

_“I’m_ **_fine._ ** _”_

_“BACK IN LINE, CADETS.”_

_It’s quiet when they get back to their dorm room. It’s Saturday, and their four other roommates have gone to town, remembering that even at the Garrison there are times when one is permitted to be a teenager._

_But Shiro isn’t here to relax; to party, to have fun, to make friends. The universe is infinite and he has not a moment to spare, to do anything that holds him back from touching the stars._

_They’d laugh at him if he hadn’t perfected the art of keeping a cool distance with a warm smile; of getting everyone to like you enough so that they leave you alone and don’t stand in your way._

_Every training session, every sim test, every afternoon in the gym lifts him one step further away from the ground and one step closer towards the sky._

_Of everyone he’s met so far, only Adam shares his ruthless focus and single-mindedness. Of everyone he’s met so far, only Adam distracts Shiro away from keeping his eye on the prize._

_Shiro pulls the regulation band aids and the contraband gummy bears out of his cubby hole._

_“Adam, please, the cut went all the way through your uniform. Let me just look at it.”_

_“Don’t baby me.”_

_But Adam sits down anyway, bites back a hiss as the fabric stuck to the bloody wound rips off the hardening scab. Shiro cradles Adam’s knee gently in his hands, rubs his thumb over the swollen skin around the cut._

_“Doesn’t look good, and I don’t have any antiseptic. You should really go to the medical bay.”_

_“Your hands are warm."_

_Shiro looks up. Adam, for once, isn’t frowning._

—

When there is no night and no day, dreaming is impossible.

“Right ankle...right calf...right knee…” Shiro whispers into the cabin.

The simplest times are always the hardest. When the autopilot holds the ship smooth and steady and there is nothing to tend to, no need for action, echos of mistakes and regrets roar loud like a waterfall.

“Right thigh...right hip...pelvis…”

Mindfulness is no compensation for sleep, but it will have to do.

“Coccyx...sacrum...lumbar…”

_“You once said you’d support me whatever I chose to do.”_

_“Don’t you dare throw this back on me — this is a fucking deathwish and you know it."_

_“Adam, enough with the dramatics.”_

_“Oh fuck you.”_

“Thoracic curve...cervical curve...cranium…”

It hadn’t been their first fight and it wouldn’t be their last. They’ll find a way to smooth it over. Nothing has to change.

—

_They come back to a hero’s welcome — the first successful return from Laomedeia._

_Shiro hasn’t had a drink since they left and the senior cadets have run the commissary dry. In the haze of light and noise and celebration, Shiro feels rather than see’s Adam’s absence._

_In the interminable time he’s been away he’s wanted nothing but to lay in his own bed; to tangle into soft sheets and warm arms, to feel hot breath against his neck and cold toes pressing into his legs._

_On the sofa Adam sits up straight, the hardback manual closing with a thud._

_“You’re back.” is all Adam says._

_The air between them is a bowstring, pulled taut and ready for flight. This is not what he expected, but neither is he surprised._

_“Hey.” Shiro replies, not stepping closer. The anxiety rising in his chest is tempered by the wine and the sake and the all-enveloping exhaustion. “Today was our scheduled return date. You knew that, right?”_

_In the silence the bowstring creeks tighter. Adam looks at the darkness through the window._

_“I came back, all in one piece. Just like I promised.” Shiro starts with a weak smile. He’s holding out an olive branch when he shouldn’t have to, and Adam has the audacity to not even try and meet him halfway. Regardless, he pushes on, always the bigger man. “I missed you so much.”_

_His eyelids are heavy but he’s ready for a fight, if that’s what needs to happen; if this is their new normal. But then—_

_“Takashi, I—” Adam chokes on a sob. Shiro freezes, caught off guard — this has never happened before._

_Adam shrinks into himself, hands wet from tears that can’t be hidden. Shiro makes his way to Adam’s side, sits by him on the sofa and reaches out to touch him._

_“No, please.” Adam says, barely a whisper. “Don’t.”_

_“Adam, I’m here. I’m alive. I came back.” Shiro creeps the words out slowly, keeps his tone feather-soft. In the four years they’ve been together he’s never seen Adam like this._

_“But you might not have.” Adam still doesn’t look up, and Shiro’s heart is a glass bell minutes before midnight._

—

Nothing on Earth is like the mountains of Kerberos, haunting like only a ghost of something familiar can be.

 _If you could only see this._ Shiro doesn't say.

—

_“When I was 12.”_

_“That late, huh?”_

_“Hey, I was next in line to a bakery empire. Quite the dream to give up on.” Adam smiles, readjusts his backpack. Even at this altitude the sweltering heat is making him dizzy. There is no respite on a mountain — you can only keep climbing._

_“Besides,” Adam begins again, grabbing the water bottle from Shiro’s backpack. “Our government aren’t hot on kids joining pan-national militaries. They want to keep the war-lust domestic.”_

_The call of wild birds haunts an echo through the vast open valleys below them. The forest and rivers buzz with life, an electric thrum that reverberates through the landscape and under their skin._

_“It was your dad, actually, that sold me the idea.” Adam says. “I hadn’t heard of the Galaxy Garrison before, but then I saw him on TV arriving back from the Titan expedition and thought ‘Man, he’s hot.’”_

_“Oh, gross.” Shiro yells, and Adam’s laugh rolls out as a snort._

_“But seriously though, watching your dad come back such a hero, seeing what people can achieve when they work together… it really inspired me. So when I turned 16 I applied for the Garrison Young Explorers programme and moved to the US. And here we are.”_

_Shiro touches is fingertips to Adam’s elbow, smiles at him. “You should tell him that next time we visit them. That’d make him so happy.”_

_Adam grins. “And you should thank him for enlisting your amazing boyfriend.”_

—

“You’re bluffing.” Matt grins into his cards. “Seriously Shiro, your poker face _sucks_.”

Shiro rubs the back of his neck — a nervous tick, a distracting comfort. His hand is one short of a Royal Flush, so close to success but so utterly useless.

“I told you I was no good at this game.” He laughs softly. The mask he wears fails his gameplay, but entirely conceals the clench of his stomach, the sickening churn of his aching, racing heart.

In the six months it’s been since they felt grass under their feet, Shiro has heard nothing from Adam. It was easy, earlier, to distract himself with work and resentment, to convince himself that it was all in the heat of the moment and everything would blow over with enough time, enough space.

But now the realisation of what has happened — what he’s allowed to happen, what he’s _done_ — sits in his stomach heavy and cold.

He excuses himself to retire early, heads straight to the bathroom and wretches, eyes and chest burning.

The mask slips and shatters, leaving jagged shards of self-deceit scattered on the floor.

—

 _“It’s a great opportunity for us both.”_  
_  
“Adam…”_

_“And we can move there after the wedding, so you shouldn’t have visa issues. I also like the idea of us living closer to my family — we’d only be half an hour away from their house.”_

_“But it’s a research facility. What would I even do out there?”_

_“Takashi, please…” Adam pauses his fingers on Shiro’s arm, but Shiro jerks away. “I just don’t want you to get_ — _”_

_“I have passed all my medicals.” Shiro spits back. The tone takes them both by surprise and one step closer to an edge they’ve been ignoring for too long. “I’m fine. More than fine — I’m certified able and ready for active combat. The entire reason we joined the Garrison in the first place.”_

_Adam watches the steam rise from his coffee cup as it starts to grow cold on the table._

_“Look,” Shiro picks up again — softer this time, but the damage is done. “I know you’re trying to protect me. But this is stifling. I have so much to give to the world and you want to hold me back.”_

_“No, Takashi. I don’t want to hold you back. I just want to be part of the world you give yourself to.”_

—

> ‘Adam,
> 
> By the time you receive this I’ll have returned from Kerberos. It will have been over 14 months since we last spoke. Even though I chose to go on this mission, I didn’t think it would be as hard as it was not to see you for so long. Not waking up next to you every morning has been torture.
> 
> I know we didn’t leave things on a good note. It took me more time than it should of to see it was my fault, that you were looking out for me and for us. I was blindsided by not wanting my body to get the better of me.
> 
> I know it’s no excuse, but please understand that receiving that diagnosis made me realise that I’m on borrowed time. Everything suddenly seemed so urgent, and you so strong, and I pushed myself in the wrong direction — far away from you.
> 
> I don’t expect you to give me a second chance, but I hope someday you can forgive me. I never meant to hurt you and you deserve far more than I can give.
> 
> I’m sorry for everything.
> 
> Yours,
> 
> Takashi’.

—

_This time Shiro can’t even lift his arm, let alone pick up the phone._

_Adam could only find four heat packs — one must have gone missing in last week’s move to their cohab quarters. He presses them to where he knows Shiro hurts the most: the right shoulder, the left thigh, the back of his neck. The final pack he flattens Shiro’s palms against, cradles Shiro’s hands and the pack in his own, trying his hardest for the comfort not to be so damn cold._

_“Can you hold this, baby?” Adam asks, on eggshells._

_But Adam’s already losing Shiro to the fog and Shiro’s gaze stays a thousand miles away. He tries again._

_“If you hold tight I can go make you a coffee.”_

_“What’s the point.” Shiro sighs. “It’s not like I can hold the cup.”_

_This much Adam knows: soldiers don’t cry and good men don’t scream, even when the rage and the fury and the crimson-coloured anguish seep into every fibre, every pore, every last shredded, frayed nerve._

_“I’ll tell Iverson you won’t be in this week.” Adam says, holds it all in._

_“Tell him I’ll be in tomorrow.” Shiro replies._

_“Right.”_

—

A few inches of fabric is what separates him from an immediate death on an airless icescape billions of miles from home.

Still, there is something undeniably sweet about watching a father and son bond over a frozen cylinder.

“This is history in the making.”

This. This right here. This is the plunge he took, the leap he made, the choice he fought everyone he’s loved and lost for. This is his purpose, his dream, what he must do before it’s too late, before there is nothing left of him, nothing left to give.

This is for himself, yes. But in it’s own way, Shiro thinks, it’s for Adam as well. Because if Shiro’s dream plunges Adam into an icy ocean of anxiety; if it strings him along with the agony of waiting to see if Shiro will hold his promise to return, then it’s best to cut the cord now and let Adam fly free.

Shiro can not feel the cold of the drill through his gloves, but he focuses it on it anyway, uses it to ground him, hold him fast and steady when there is not gravity to do so.

“We could be the first humans ever to meet aliens.”

—-

 _“Shirogane, Wisseman, elevate eight degrees.”_  
_  
“Hey, Shiro.” Adam says through the plane’s intercom, the grin in his voice carrying for miles. “Let’s piss Iverson off.”_

_Shiro laughs, electric with nerves and excitement. Flying with Adam is something else, all knife edges and dramatic flair. A-grade and well-behaved, Shiro is all hot embers when Adam steps into his comfort zone and yanks him out by the collar, drags him backwards without a parachute into a freefall of infinite possibilities._

_“WISSEMAN, BACK IN LINE!”_

_Adam’s laughter rings through Shiro’s helmet as he double loops straight of of a corkscrew. Shiro’s heart pulls the same manoeuvres._

—

Shiro was supposed to die first.

—

_“Thank you.”_

_“Hmm?” Adam mumbles, face buried deep in Shiro's hair. “For what?”_

_Shiro rolls over onto his stomach, rests his chin on Adam’s bare chest. The hair tickles his nose. “Oh, you know.”_

_“For...the coffee?” Adam threads his fingers through the rabbit's tail that is Shiro's bangs._

_“Hmm, that too.”_

_“For last night?” he grins, stroking Shiro’s ear. Shiro looks up, sleepy and warm._

_“Just...for everything. Because I don’t say it enough.” He pulls Adam’s knuckles to his lips. “Thank you for everything.”_

_-_

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on the [Tumblr](https://dmajor7th.tumblr.com).
> 
> Also, gold star if you can guess Adam's nationality.


End file.
